Personnel Psychology
Lecture notes
Week 1 - Introduction, current challenges, and evidence-based practice
Personnel psychology applies principles from psychology to the workplace.
Human resource management’s aim is to achieve organizational objectives through the
effective use of employees, and managing people in organizations. Its goal is to improve the
productive contribution of individuals in the organization.
● Strategic HRM: all activities are designed to be in line with the goals of the
organization and in combination predict organizational performance.
○ Analysis and work design, HR planning, recruiting, selection, training and
development, performance management, compensation, employee relations
–> Company performance
○ Personnel psychology’s objective is assessing how organizations should deal
with these variables such that individuals' needs are fulfilled and individuals
can perform and develop at work.
● Human Capital Management is a new approach that is more person-focused: it is
centered around the importance of thriving at work, vitality, and personnel
development, and states that organizations have to invest in employees.
○ This more closely matches current trends in human resources: war for talent,
specialized knowledge from individual employees, skills, and expertise as a
scarce resource.
● Psychologists apply psychological, methodological, and statistical knowledge, and
are people-focused:
○ Costs for wrong personnel decisions for company and for the person:
organizations should invest in and protect employees
○ Importance of employee health, motivation, development: managing human
capital.
○ They use a theory-based approach:
■ Deductive reasoning: if I know something to be true in general, it
should apply to a specific situation
■ Allows to understand and predict variables of interest
■ Allow to describe and explain a process or sequence of events
Some current and future challenges in personnel psychology include:
● Societal and economic transformations
○ Employees are expected to cope with a dynamic, uncertain environment and
have high digital skills. They are expected to be creative, proactive, and to
upskill constantly.
○ Organizations are expected to create humane job conditions and possibilities
to include all (age) groups, create an environment free from harassment,
discrimination, and empower minority groups, have a technology-focus and to
be flexible.
● The Great Resignation (Or Big Quit or Great Reshuffle): ongoing trend where
employees voluntarily left their jobs to move to a different job. Healthcare, education,
and hospitality were mostly affected.
, ○ The pandemic may have played a role in this: people started to critically
evaluate what their work and priorities should be.
● An Ageing workforce: >20% of the European workforce will consist of workers aged
55 or older in 2030. Today’s workforce often brings together three generations.
○ Delayed retirement, lifelong learning, and re-training older workers are
challenging factors.
● Skill shortages: skill gaps in the labor market cause difficulties for recruitment and
selection.
○ Healthcare, IT, craftspeople, and education are sensitive to shortages.
● Gig economy: primarily (short-term) independent freelance workers who contract
with organizations or sell directly to the market. These include solo-entrepreneurs
and micro-entrepreneurs.
○ Benefits for organizations:
■ Less time and costs for hiring, onboarding, training, employee
relations, more flexibility
○ Benefits and disadvantages for employees:
■ Flexibility, autonomy, work-life balance
■ Uncertain career paths, financial instability, job insecurity, lack of
social benefits such as healthcare or retirement
● Decent work is based on a few dimensions that promote fair income and work
conditions that allow people to fulfill their basic human needs. Its aim is to create
work that fosters empowerment, justice, occupational pride, job and life satisfaction,
and well-being. The dimensions are split up in:
○ Reproductive material: planning and security, living wage, job security
○ Social-communicative: integration in social networks and communication and
cooperation
○ Legal-institutional: labor legislation, social legislation, participation rights
○ Status and recognition: recognition, appreciation, and social status
○ Meaningful subject-related: meaning in and identification with work
● Political and societal disruptions
New technology brings changes in the manner and methods by which HRM practices are
conducted. Automation, AI-based technologies, gamification, and VR all bring changes to
the daily practice of HRM.
● VR is often used for training purposes: learning by doing through simulating real-life
work situations (e.g. applied by Walmart, UPS, NASA)
● AI chatbots could help in HR in many different situations such as:
○ Recruitment, onboarding, performance management: Automate repetitive
tasks, schedule interviews and training sessions, answer FAQ’s, provide
guidance on conducting performance evaluations.
○ but does not solve everything: providing emotional support to employees,
solving interpersonal issues, develop, change, and implement HR vision and
strategies, create organizational climate and culture.
● Big data and workplace analytics: The use of people-related data to improve and
inform all types of management and HR decisions. Past and present information is
used to predict the future and impact future HRM practices.
○ Three categories of Big Data:
, ■ Volume: Amount of data generated or collected: 1 terabyte is
considered big data
■ Velocity: Speed of generating and processing data, real-time
processing, connected devices, and sources such as phones, social
media, and smartwatches
■ Variety: Number of data types: qualitative and quantitative data
○ Examples:
■ Patterns and trends of employee turnover
■ Visualization of team performance over time
● Problems and limitations in new technology.
○ Cohort differences in the acceptance of new technologies: does it attract a
different type of employee?
○ Lack of high-quality research, validation, and evaluation studies: Employment
practices that appear neutral but have negative consequences to members of
protected groups.
■ E.g. motion sickness in VR technology use
● Mismatch of visual and movement data
● Women are more strongly affected by motion sickness when
using virtual reality than men.
○ Big data and AI: Data is not neutral, but based on employer’s history of
recruiting, retention, promotion, and compensation. Decisions of the past may
reflect biases in current data.
■ E.g. Performance evaluations may have been historically biased
against a particular (minority) group.
● If biased data is used to train an AI tool, the algorithm will be
biased as well.
Evidence-based practice in personnel psychology is based on the mindset of combining
scientific evidence, critical thinking, and business-related information to make decisions in
human resource management.
● Scientist-practitioner gap: Practitioners should look to scientific literature for
guidance or managing human resources. Scientists should identify issues that are
relevant to practitioners or organizations.
○ Why do organizations not act in a rational, knowledge-based manner?
○ Why do organizations make use of false knowledge?
○ Scientists and practitioners should collaborate through open science or other
forms of communication such as community science, podcasts, social media,
etc.
● Sources for evidence-based practice include organizational data, scientific research,
stakeholder input, and professional expertise.
○ Example: meta-analysis: Quantitative overview which includes estimating an
average effect across several studies, testing moderators, and summarizing
knowledge. Disadvantage: very time consuming.
● Actions and sources for evidence-based practice: example of high absenteeism
○ Ask: how to reduce absenteeism?
○ Acquire: literature search, available organizational data
○ Appraise: trustworthiness and relevance of evidence such as the quality of
search and information
Lecture notes
Week 1 - Introduction, current challenges, and evidence-based practice
Personnel psychology applies principles from psychology to the workplace.
Human resource management’s aim is to achieve organizational objectives through the
effective use of employees, and managing people in organizations. Its goal is to improve the
productive contribution of individuals in the organization.
● Strategic HRM: all activities are designed to be in line with the goals of the
organization and in combination predict organizational performance.
○ Analysis and work design, HR planning, recruiting, selection, training and
development, performance management, compensation, employee relations
–> Company performance
○ Personnel psychology’s objective is assessing how organizations should deal
with these variables such that individuals' needs are fulfilled and individuals
can perform and develop at work.
● Human Capital Management is a new approach that is more person-focused: it is
centered around the importance of thriving at work, vitality, and personnel
development, and states that organizations have to invest in employees.
○ This more closely matches current trends in human resources: war for talent,
specialized knowledge from individual employees, skills, and expertise as a
scarce resource.
● Psychologists apply psychological, methodological, and statistical knowledge, and
are people-focused:
○ Costs for wrong personnel decisions for company and for the person:
organizations should invest in and protect employees
○ Importance of employee health, motivation, development: managing human
capital.
○ They use a theory-based approach:
■ Deductive reasoning: if I know something to be true in general, it
should apply to a specific situation
■ Allows to understand and predict variables of interest
■ Allow to describe and explain a process or sequence of events
Some current and future challenges in personnel psychology include:
● Societal and economic transformations
○ Employees are expected to cope with a dynamic, uncertain environment and
have high digital skills. They are expected to be creative, proactive, and to
upskill constantly.
○ Organizations are expected to create humane job conditions and possibilities
to include all (age) groups, create an environment free from harassment,
discrimination, and empower minority groups, have a technology-focus and to
be flexible.
● The Great Resignation (Or Big Quit or Great Reshuffle): ongoing trend where
employees voluntarily left their jobs to move to a different job. Healthcare, education,
and hospitality were mostly affected.
, ○ The pandemic may have played a role in this: people started to critically
evaluate what their work and priorities should be.
● An Ageing workforce: >20% of the European workforce will consist of workers aged
55 or older in 2030. Today’s workforce often brings together three generations.
○ Delayed retirement, lifelong learning, and re-training older workers are
challenging factors.
● Skill shortages: skill gaps in the labor market cause difficulties for recruitment and
selection.
○ Healthcare, IT, craftspeople, and education are sensitive to shortages.
● Gig economy: primarily (short-term) independent freelance workers who contract
with organizations or sell directly to the market. These include solo-entrepreneurs
and micro-entrepreneurs.
○ Benefits for organizations:
■ Less time and costs for hiring, onboarding, training, employee
relations, more flexibility
○ Benefits and disadvantages for employees:
■ Flexibility, autonomy, work-life balance
■ Uncertain career paths, financial instability, job insecurity, lack of
social benefits such as healthcare or retirement
● Decent work is based on a few dimensions that promote fair income and work
conditions that allow people to fulfill their basic human needs. Its aim is to create
work that fosters empowerment, justice, occupational pride, job and life satisfaction,
and well-being. The dimensions are split up in:
○ Reproductive material: planning and security, living wage, job security
○ Social-communicative: integration in social networks and communication and
cooperation
○ Legal-institutional: labor legislation, social legislation, participation rights
○ Status and recognition: recognition, appreciation, and social status
○ Meaningful subject-related: meaning in and identification with work
● Political and societal disruptions
New technology brings changes in the manner and methods by which HRM practices are
conducted. Automation, AI-based technologies, gamification, and VR all bring changes to
the daily practice of HRM.
● VR is often used for training purposes: learning by doing through simulating real-life
work situations (e.g. applied by Walmart, UPS, NASA)
● AI chatbots could help in HR in many different situations such as:
○ Recruitment, onboarding, performance management: Automate repetitive
tasks, schedule interviews and training sessions, answer FAQ’s, provide
guidance on conducting performance evaluations.
○ but does not solve everything: providing emotional support to employees,
solving interpersonal issues, develop, change, and implement HR vision and
strategies, create organizational climate and culture.
● Big data and workplace analytics: The use of people-related data to improve and
inform all types of management and HR decisions. Past and present information is
used to predict the future and impact future HRM practices.
○ Three categories of Big Data:
, ■ Volume: Amount of data generated or collected: 1 terabyte is
considered big data
■ Velocity: Speed of generating and processing data, real-time
processing, connected devices, and sources such as phones, social
media, and smartwatches
■ Variety: Number of data types: qualitative and quantitative data
○ Examples:
■ Patterns and trends of employee turnover
■ Visualization of team performance over time
● Problems and limitations in new technology.
○ Cohort differences in the acceptance of new technologies: does it attract a
different type of employee?
○ Lack of high-quality research, validation, and evaluation studies: Employment
practices that appear neutral but have negative consequences to members of
protected groups.
■ E.g. motion sickness in VR technology use
● Mismatch of visual and movement data
● Women are more strongly affected by motion sickness when
using virtual reality than men.
○ Big data and AI: Data is not neutral, but based on employer’s history of
recruiting, retention, promotion, and compensation. Decisions of the past may
reflect biases in current data.
■ E.g. Performance evaluations may have been historically biased
against a particular (minority) group.
● If biased data is used to train an AI tool, the algorithm will be
biased as well.
Evidence-based practice in personnel psychology is based on the mindset of combining
scientific evidence, critical thinking, and business-related information to make decisions in
human resource management.
● Scientist-practitioner gap: Practitioners should look to scientific literature for
guidance or managing human resources. Scientists should identify issues that are
relevant to practitioners or organizations.
○ Why do organizations not act in a rational, knowledge-based manner?
○ Why do organizations make use of false knowledge?
○ Scientists and practitioners should collaborate through open science or other
forms of communication such as community science, podcasts, social media,
etc.
● Sources for evidence-based practice include organizational data, scientific research,
stakeholder input, and professional expertise.
○ Example: meta-analysis: Quantitative overview which includes estimating an
average effect across several studies, testing moderators, and summarizing
knowledge. Disadvantage: very time consuming.
● Actions and sources for evidence-based practice: example of high absenteeism
○ Ask: how to reduce absenteeism?
○ Acquire: literature search, available organizational data
○ Appraise: trustworthiness and relevance of evidence such as the quality of
search and information
